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Greg Fewell
My Father's Side My father, Mike’s, side of the family, the Fewell side, was originally from Scotland, and later, other parts of western Europe. However, after the Fewells immigrated over to the United States, my father’s grandfather eventually ended up in Oklahoma. Sadly, my father’s grandparents passed away before he got a chance to know them very well. However, he was very close to his parents growing up, especially his father. His parents, Joe and Verda Fewell, were always extremely hard-working, a trait they passed on to my father. Neither of them was college-educated, but that did not matter. They did what they had to do to give their children a good life. My grandma worked at the Halliburton Federal Credit Union for years before eventually leaving to work at a car lot run by good family friends. She was at work every day after getting my father and aunt to school and home promptly after five to have dinner on the table and start on the household chores. My grandfather was a workaholic to the core, not because he wanted to be; he had to be. In the short time I had with my Papaw Joe, he was a welder, rancher, truck driver, and a farmer. He did whatever he had to do to pay the bills and keep food on the table, often working long nights in his welding shop and then getting up with the sun to go feed his cattle. Yet, no matter how tired he was, I don’t recall him ever turning me or my sister down when one of us wanted to sit in his lap and drive the truck around the pasture or saddle up one of the horses to ride down to the creek. I was young and naïve and could not even begin to appreciate the little things like that at the time. I was only four when he died. He had a heart attack while working in his welding shop. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was already too late. That was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. It was a huge blow to everyone in the family, especially my dad, grandma, and Aunt Misty, and a lot changed after that. My Mother's Side My mother’s side of the family, the Gardners, also came from Europe originally. However, my mother’s great-grandmother was full-blood Chickasaw. Both my nanny, Margie Ann Wilson, and my Papaw, Gus Gardner, were born during the Great Depression, and like my other grandparents, were extremely hard-working people. They were married in 1956 while my nanny was still in high school. I remember one time my sister asked her about their honeymoon, and nanny just kind of looked at her inquisitively for a moment or two. Then she explained that they didn’t have time for a honeymoon. She had school and a paper due the day after their wedding, and papaw had to be at work at the lumber yard at 7 a.m. Like my father’s parents, my mom’s parents had two kids. My uncle Earl came along a few years after they were married, and my mother, Ralena, was born in 1963 right around the time they were moving into the house where my grandpa still lives to this very day. Living through the depression, my grandparents, and my grandpa in particular, knew how to work hard and live modestly. He worked at Duncan Builder’s Supply, a local hardware store/lumber yard from the time he married my grandma up until last year when he retired. My mom tells me that she can’t recall a week growing up when he didn’t work overtime. Yet, he still found time to help out with household work every night when he got home. My nanny was the real homemaker, though. In fact, she had so much fun raising her own kids, she decided she would help other people raise theirs. But, back to that in a bit… The Extended Family Rodeos play a pretty big part in my family history. My dad played a few different sports growing up, but his father had taught him how to ride horses, herd cattle, and eventually, rope calves. He became extremely good at it and developed a passion for it. In fact, my dad would never say this out loud to anybody, but I believe if it weren’t for my sister and I coming along, he could have been a world champion. Many of his friends and peers, people that he competed against and often beat, went on to compete in the world championships and made a lot of money along the way. Ask him, though, and he’ll tell you the best thing to come from his rodeo days is his relationship with my mom. Uncle Earl was a great athlete and loved baseball, but he was also the wild one of the family. From more than a few arrests to picking drunken fights just because he was bored, I’m told he was a hell-raiser growing up. It only made sense, my pawpa said, that he would be drawn to bull riding. Both my mom and uncle had to get jobs as soon as they turned 13 to “do their part and learn the value of hard work and a dollar,” as my grandpa put it. So, the weekends were just about the only times they had free. My mom got into barrel racing, and was always going to rodeos with my uncle. Thus, she met my father when they were sophomores in high school. Soon after graduating high school, my mother got a job at the Halliburton technology center as a secretary. She still works there today as assistant to the vice president of the company. My father went to college for a semester before failing out due to his rodeoing and partying. He kept rodeoing for a few years after that, but my mom was ready to start a family. So, he decided to settle down and get a job at the Halliburton manufacturing center where, coincidentally, my uncle had also just been hired after marrying my aunt Penny. My father loved his family and has remained very close to his sister, my aunt Misty, and my grandma Verda. However, the rest of his extended family lives all over the place — Iowa, Nebraska, California, even a few as far away as Montana. That, combined with the fact that my mother’s side of the family was so close, meant that my father soon became very close to my mother’s family. And family is everything to the Gardners. Earl and Penny started popping out kids around the same time as my parents did. My cousin, Josh, was the first grandkid. Then his brother, Daniel, was born two years after him. My sister, Tiffany, came along a year later. Then Hannah, the third and final Gardner child was born a year later. Finally, I came along in 1990 to round things out. Though we were cousins, we always felt more like siblings. What family meant then... In many ways, my nanny, Margie, was the foundation that kept our family together. She was in church every Sunday and expected her family to be right there beside her. Even my uncle, who had been a wild child, grew up eventually. By the time I was born, he had become a preacher. It was common for my family alone to take up about three pews in the morning church service. My nanny was always there first, saving seats for my mom, my sister, and me. Daniel would usually sit beside me, too, as we were like brothers growing up. Then, Earl, Penny, Josh and Hannah would be behind us. And, Stella, my great-grandmother would be in front of us with Peggy, nanny’s sister and her two daughters — Janetta and Regina. Family time did not just stop after the church service, either. It was an all-day event. We would all go home and change clothes, and then, it was straight to nanny and pawpa’s house. The five kids were expected to go outside and play. We were told it was good for us, but I have a hunch that was not the only reason. The adults would stay inside and talk for hours while we all ate until we were beyond stuffed. Usually, the meal consisted of fried chicken or pork chops, green beans, black-eyed peas, cornbread and whatever desserts mom and nanny decided to make that day. Every Sunday, rain or shine, I could always count on spending a few hours with these people. It’s something I think I took for granted at the time. For the younger years of my life, I was with my cousins every single day. My mom and dad both had to work just as my cousin’s parents did. So, it was nanny who picked all five of us up from school every day. She was busy watching younger kids during the day to supplement pawpa’s income, but she was never too busy for her babies. She would pick us up every day, feed us a snack, and make us finish our homework before we could play. Then, we were out in the yard playing football, climbing trees or making up our own game to play. What family means now... People grow up and grow apart, though. We were no different. As the kids grew older, we started having our own lives outside of the family. Earl got a job at another church, so we saw each other less on Sundays. We no longer needed a babysitter after school and had our own sports and activities going on, so we saw each other less during the week. Holidays like Independence Day went from being major deals where we were all together all day to people just dropping by to grab food on their way to the lake with friends. Being the youngest, this bothered me a lot. I missed that sense of closeness we all used to have. Then, I grew up, too. By high school, I was self-absorbed into my own life just like the rest of my family. Then, everything changed. Hannah was about to graduate, Josh was getting married, Daniel and Tiffany were both in college. My father and Earl were both working in different cities through the week. We were all shocked when we got the news that nanny had lung cancer. Just three months before she found out, she asked my grandpa for an anniversary present. He had beaten alcoholism two years prior, a secret that was hidden from me for most of my life up until he started trying to quit, but he still did not attend church. She asked that, instead of buying her something, he join her for church every Sunday for a month. Since that time, my grandfather never misses a church service. Call it faith, denial, whatever. At first, we all truly believed she would be okay. But then things kept getting worse, and the doctors only gave her a few months. By the end, she would go long spells where she barely knew who anybody was and was clearly in excruciating pain. I went into the hospital to see her on one such occasion. She was saying terrible things to my mom, clearly unaware of whom she was. Then, she saw my cousin and I walk into the room and instantly changed. “There are my babies,” she said. She started crying and hugged my mom, who in turn, started crying and grabbed us. We told her we were sorry and wished there was something, anything we could to do to help her. She only had one word of advice for us. “Just love each other,” she said. “Always remember that’s the most important thing. I’ll be fine. I’ll be in a better place. Don’t worry about me. Just love each other.” I’ll never forget that. I don’t think anyone in my family will. We’re all a lot different now. We’re all a lot busier now. But we always find time for each other, if not in person then on the phone. After my pawpa Joe died, my grandma Verda had to sell the old farmhouse I knew and loved so well. I was incredibly sad about that. All of those memories, I thought, are just gone. I was naïve, though. I see now that the memories, the really important stuff, can’t be taken away. I still remember those walks with her down the gravel road to the mailbox and watching my grandpa saddle the horse and reach down to pick me up. I talk to my grandma about that stuff sometimes. She’ll get a tear in her eye and say something like, “I can’t believe you remember that. You were so little.” I think that’s what family is all about. Looking back now, I see all of those little moments like that and realize those are the moments that taught me what it means to love and be loved. I didn’t understand the significance then. It took the loss of someone we all loved very dearly to show my family that significance. Love, having people that care about you no matter how bad you screw up or how bad you may treat them, and caring about those people just as much is the most important thing in life. That’s what my family taught me even if I didn’t realize the lesson was sinking in. We are extending the family now. Josh has two beautiful little girls. Avery is four, and Maddie is two. Daniel just had his first son, Jackson, and Hannah has her second on the way. My sister just got engaged, so it is probably only a matter of time before she contributes with a little one of her own. I’ll probably even extend the family, myself, some day…in the distant future. We all have our own lives and our own priorities, but we make time for each other. We see each other on Christmas and Thanksgiving and call each other on birthdays. Above all, we never forget nanny’s words. We love each other no matter what. That’s the important thing. That’s family. Category:Students